STUDIOCANAL and the ICO have just announced a season of theatrical screenings in celebration of some of the finest, most entertaining and quirkiest cinema that the UK has ever produced including some of my personal favourites like Nicolas Roeg’s outstanding classic The Man Who Fell To Earth and Ealing Studios's Passport to Pimlico. This is an excellent opportunity to see some genuinely classic cinema back up on the big screen in high quality the way they were intended to be seen.

I am going to try watch all the films in the run up to the season so hopefully I’ll have some reviews up soon as well as details of where and how to get tickets.

In this year of celebration of all things British, ICO and Studiocanal are delighted to announce a summer season of theatrical screenings in celebration of some of the finest, most entertaining and quirkiest cinema that this sceptred isle has ever produced.

The Made in Britain season is sandwiched between the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics and will give audiences across the country the opportunity to enjoy five restored classic British films on the big screen. A national screening event every Tuesday from 5 June to 3 July inclusive will see each film screen digitally in cinemas across the country.

Made in Britain offers a glimpse into the peculiar character of our happy breed of men, sometimes directly and sometimes not so, and in doing so invites the audience to rejoice (and commiserate) in some of the most beloved eccentricities and quirks of the national character.

These films have also been chosen because they have received extensive digital restoration but not been seen widely on the big screen for some time, thus giving cinema-goers the opportunity to experience them in a cinematic environment and as fresh as when they were first released.

The full The Made in Britain season programme is as follows:

PASSPORT TO PIMLICO – Tuesday 5 June
Ealing’s most quintessentially British comedy, about a group of Londoners who protest their right to be “Burgundian” following discovery of an ancient charter in a WWII bomb crater.

Video: Low resolution Passport to Pimlico Trailer

Please note: clip quality in no way reflects the high quality of the restored version to be screened.

Passport to Pimlico

Residents of a part of London declare independence, when they discover an old treaty. This leads to the need for a 'Passport to Pimlico'.

Director: Henry Cornelius

Writer: T.E.B. Clarke

Stars: Stanley Holloway, Betty Warren and Barbara Murray

PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES – Tuesday 12 June

One of Hammer’s most underrated films, a fantastically off-the-wall zombie thriller set in Cornwall, starring Jacqueline Pearce and André Morell.

Video: Low resolution
The Plague of the Zombies Trailer

Please note: clip quality in no way reflects the high quality of the restored version to be screened.

The Plague of the Zombies

Young workers are dying because of a mysterious epidemic in a little village in Cornwall. Doctor Thompson is helpless and asks professor James Forbes for help. The professor and his daughter Sylvia travel to Thomson. Terrible things happen soon, beyond imagination or reality. Dead people are seen near an old, unused mine. Late people seem to live suddenly. Professor Forbes presumes that black magic is involved and someone has extraordinary power. He doesn't know how close he is: the dead become alive because of a magic voodoo-ritual, and so they must serve their master as mindless zombies.

Director: John Gilling

Writer: Peter Bryan

Stars: André Morell, Diane Clare and Brook Williams

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH – Tuesday 19 June

Nic Roeg’s sci-fi classic starring David Bowie, Rip Torn and Candy Clark in an adaptation of Walter Tevis’ novel about an alien who comes to Earth seeking a solution to his home planet’s woes, only to find himself lost in an unfamiliar, corrupt and sometimes hostile society.

Video: Low resolution The Man Who Fell to Earth Trailer

Please note: clip quality in no way reflects the high quality of the restored version to be screened.

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth achieved cult film status for David Bowie's performance as Thomas Jerome Newton, aka "Mr. Sussex," and the imagery of director Nicholas Roeg, a former cinematographer. In this deeply allegorical science-fiction drama, Newton is an alien from a planet that is dying for lack of water, and he has been sent to earth to find a way to ship some of the earth's plentiful supply to his home planet. He arrives with a human-looking disguise, his knowledge of unusual technologies, his despair, and little else. Using his knowledge, he takes out patents on "his" inventions, aided by patent lawyer Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry). He skillfully parlays the money from these inventions and becomes a financial/industrial tycoon. These inventions, and others like them, along with his political and financial power, should make possible the transfer of water to his planet. But instead of pressing forward with plans to save his home planet, he becomes enamored of Earth's low-down ways and of his strange, passive relationship with his elevator-operator girlfriend, Mary Lou (Candy Clark). Meanwhile, his phenomenal rise from anonymity to power, and his eccentric behavior, spark the government's interest. Chemistry professor Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn) also comes calling, fascinated by the alien's history. As gin and despair slowly cripple him, he becomes consumed by memories of life on his doomed planet.

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Writers: Paul Mayersberg, Walter Tevis

Stars: David Bowie, Rip Torn and Candy Clark

HOBSON'S CHOICE – Tuesday 26 June

David Lean directs Charles Laughton and John Mills in this tale of a hapless 19th Century boot-maker, rather too fond of his local pub and trying to cope with a trio of willful daughters.

Hobson's Choice

Henry Hobson runs a successful bootmaker's shop in nineteenth-century Salford. A widower with a weakness for the pub opposite, he tries forcefully to run the lives of his three unruly daughters. When he decrees 'no marriages' to avoid the expensive matter of settlements, eldest daughter Maggie rebels and sets her sights on Will Mossop, Hobson's star bootmaker. Maggie and Will leave to start up in competition, and she then turns her mind to helping her sisters marry their chosen partners.

QUATERMASS & THE PIT – Tuesday 3 July
Part of the seminal Quatermass series, created by BBC writer Nigel Kneale and then turned into a film trilogy by Hammer, Quatermass provided the blueprint for many classic Sci-fi creations to follow – including Dr Who and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus

Video: Low resolution QUATERMASS & THE PIT Trailer

Please note: clip quality in no way reflects the high quality of the restored version to be screened.

Quatermass and the Pit

An ancient Martian spaceship is unearthed in London, and proves to have powerful psychic effects on the people around.

Director: Roy Ward Baker

Writer: Nigel Kneale (original story and screenplay)

Stars: James Donald, Andrew Keir and Barbara Shelley

The five films have been chosen to illustrate the breadth of the work that has been produced by British film makers over the last century, and range from post-war comedy to ground-breaking sci-fi. A true British musical icon, a bevy of troublesome daughters, aliens on the Underground, zombies in Cornwall and some particularly obstinate inhabitants of a small London borough feature in films from the mighty studios of Hammer and Ealing and legendary directors David Lean and Nic Roeg.

PASSPORT TO PIMLICO – Tuesday 5th June

PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES – Tuesday 12th June

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH – Tuesday 19th June

HOBSON'S CHOICE – Tuesday 26th June

QUATERMASS & THE PIT – Tuesday 3rd July

THE ESTABLISHING SHOT: MADE IN BRITAIN: A SEASON CELEBRATING THE FINEST IN VINTAGE BRITISH FILM